


And So We Keep On Keeping On

by i_amnerd



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-25
Updated: 2014-09-25
Packaged: 2018-02-18 18:21:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2357669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_amnerd/pseuds/i_amnerd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's about faith.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And So We Keep On Keeping On

**Author's Note:**

> Set sometime after 'Somebody's Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail' but before the MS scandal.

Sam breaks down in Toby's office, tears streaming down his cheeks as he gasps for breath between sobs. His voice is small and broken as he asks, "Why?"

Toby is silent. He doesn't make a move to wrap Sam in an embrace, he just blinks, "Come on." He finally says, grabbing their coats and pushing Sam through the door. They move quickly, propelled by the curious stares of the staffers, and within minutes they are out in the cold. Sam shivers without his coat and Toby sighs impatiently, holding it out for the younger man to clamber into.

No words pass between them. At some point during the campaign, words had ceased to be necessary. They worked with words constantly. They wrote in their heads. They thought in metaphor and rhetoric and verse. All the words went into the speeches and into the President's mouth. What words they did use to converse were used sparingly, conserved.

Sam, sitting in the passenger seat of Toby's car, looks dazed. He's stopped crying though, his eyes red and puffy, his cheeks bruised by the wind.

"Did you, um, call him?" Toby asks, turning to face his deputy rather than starting the car.

Sam just nods, staring straight ahead, his face stony, no longer betraying the emotions simmering beneath the surface.

"Hm."

Toby glances over at Sam a few times as he drives to his apartment. He doesn't fall asleep but he leans against the window with a heavy sigh. The little lines around his eyes and mouth seem more pronounced than usual. For once he looks his age.

Sam stays a couple of steps behind Toby as they walk up to his apartment. His head is bowed as he concentrates on putting one foot in front of the other. Toby fumbles as he turns the key in the lock, pushing open the door with his foot whilst turning to usher Sam inside. Sam is pliant and obedient. His lack of questions about what's happening is unnerving.

He stands stock still in the hallway as Toby pulls out a pair of black sweatpants and a Princeton t-shirt he's eighty percent sure is Sam's anyway.

"Shower." Toby tells him, thrusting the garments into his arms before striding into the kitchen. He starts pulling ingredients from the fridge with the intention of making some kind of stir fry. Sam does he is told and it's only a few moments before Toby hears the water start to run. Twenty minutes later, the water has not stopped and Toby goes to investigate.

His heart physically aches when he walks into the bathroom and finds Sam huddled on the floor of the shower, knees pulled up to his chest, arms tightly wound around his legs.

"Sam?" He asks, approaching cautiously. Reaching to one side, he grabs the first towel he can find. Sam looks up and Toby almost takes a step back. Sam's eyes are full of pain and grief. Simultaneously, he looks hollow but fiery and the juxtaposition of the two is almost too hard to take.

"T... Toby?" He stutters, shivering under the cold water.

Toby switches the shower off and wraps Sam in the towel, "I've got you." He whispers, at once appalled by the cliché passing his lips and too worried to care.

"S... sorry." Sam mumbles into his chest as he pulls him close, helping him into his clothes as best he can.

Once he is dressed, they stumble into the kitchen together, Toby helping Sam to sit down at the table.

"You have nothing to to be sorry for." He says firmly, throwing chicken strips and peppers into a pan, before trying to discover where he'd hidden the blasted noodles.

"I'm not really hungry."

"Tough."

"Okay."

They eat in silence. Toby chooses, uncharacteristically, not to push. Sam will talk when he's ready to talk. Pressure will only cause him to shut down further.

Sam has maybe finished half his food when he pushes it away and says, "So what now?"

"Want to talk?" Toby asks tentatively, unsure of how his suggestion will be received.

"Not really." Sam mumbles looking down.

"Okay. Help me wash up?"

"Okay."

Sam stands slowly and grabs a tea towel. Toby looks at him properly then and realise that Sam looks shattered. It's as if, when he looks into those bright blue eyes, he can see the hairline cracks across Sam's soul. Cracks that weren't therefore. Cracks that could so easily widen with even the slightest provocation. Toby isn't good at treading lightly and this worries him.

They make quick work of the washing up, working in a kind of perfect synchronisation born of too many late nights in the office writing speech after speech to combat the cascade of crises that keep falling into their laps. Again and again and again and again.

Afterwards, Toby goes to change into pyjamas, or, more accurately, sweatpants and an old, grey t-shirt. When he returns Sam is sitting alone in the front room. All the lights are off and his face is illuminated by the glow of his laptop. He's curled at one end of Toby's couch, knees pulled up to his chest, computer balanced atop.

"Hi." He says quietly, turning to look up at Toby.

"Hi."

Toby pours himself a scotch. The cloudy, amber coloured liquid swirls languidly over the ice, like waves over rocks in the calm before the storm. He watches Sam as he writes furiously.

Deciding that Sam is better off without alcohol, he says, "You should, uh, sleep."

Sam smiles softly and carefully places the laptop on Toby's coffee table, careful not to disturb the newspapers scattered upon it. There are tears in his eyes as he stares at the floor. He is scarily calm and Toby is suddenly on edge, waiting for him to break, to fall apart. For the tears to begin to flow and never stop.

"The worst of it," He says slowly, his voice small and timid, "Is that I still love him."

"I know." Toby feels uncomfortable, towering over Sam, so he drops to the floor, crossing his legs and leaning his back against the wall for support. It's the closest to casual he's going to manage.

"I told Donna that I'm feeling like this because your parents' fidelity is one of those things that you just know. You know that they're not going out and screwing other people. You know." He sighs, "I lied."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." He hesitates, suddenly looking self-concious, as if Toby might not want him to go on. Toby isn't surprised, he isn't the easiest person to talk to and he has certainly never made himself available to Sam in this way before. Still, he waves a hand in silent encouragement, a gesture to continue, and Sam nods once. "It's..." He wavers, obviously unsure of the words. Sam Seaborn with no words in a vaguely terrifying thought and Toby can't help but tense up. "It's not even about honour or integrity or... It's about trust. You can never know but you put your faith in someone because what other choice do you have? And then they..." Sam trails off, his mouth closing with an audible snap.

"Parents can suck." Toby immediately berates himself for the in-eloquence of his words but Sam doesn't seem to mind. He just rubs his mouth absently, with one finger and thumb a gesture he very definitely caught from Toby.

"Yeah."

"They don't define who you are." Toby is certain of this.

"That's true." Sam nods, "But..."

"Yeah." The word is expelled from Toby's mouth on a single breath, at once both forceful and not.

"It's about faith."

"Yeah."

**Author's Note:**

> I really don't know what this is. I'm not even sure there's a plot here...


End file.
